ABSTRACT
Although its roots can be traced back centuries, and even millennia, systems theory—and the corresponding systems approaches to dealing with complex problem situations—emerged as a distinct field of inquiry in the mid-twentieth century through a confluence of developments in science and technology. Revolutionary discoveries in the physical sciences in the early twentieth century—quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity—had already exposed the limitations of the Newtonian framework that had dominated scientific inquiry since the seventeenth century. In the biological sciences, the emerging understanding of feedback processes and the open system nature of living systems pointed to the need for an expanded scientific framework to address the complexity of these systems. Parallel technological developments in the rapidly evolving energy, manufacturing, transportation, and information sectors introduced more complex organizational challenges. The systems movement can thus be seen as an attempt to understand the nature and source of organization in complex systems and to apply that understanding in the design of human systems.
